Mirage (the voyeur remix)
by Flywoman Returns
Summary: He's alive. She's a mess, and they're both so thirsty.


**Spoilers: ** 2X24, "No Reason"  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> Written for Remix Redux 11: The Eleventh Hour as a remix of Thirst by 0penhearts. Thanks very much to jezziejay for the beta! 

He first becomes aware of a faint, regular sound that he recognizes after a few seconds as the drip drip drip drip drip drip from an I.V. bag down the tube. His, he thinks. He can feel the slight pinch of the needle taped to the crook of his elbow. The hospital is hushed and dark beyond his eyelids, so it's late, sometime after midnight. His whole body hurts.

Another sound now, the creak of a chair, the scrape of a shoe. He blinks and squints, wondering whether it's Wilson waiting up for him, tight-lipped with worry, or possibly Cuddy, second-guessing her reluctant consent. But when his vision clears, he sees that it's Cameron, leaning back in the chair, arms crossed in front of her, eyes closed.

He should have guessed, but still feels disappointed. He almost opens his mouth to get her attention, then thinks better of it and lets his eyelids flutter shut again, measuring his breaths in and out, slow and steady, keeping time with the beeping heart monitor.

drip

drip  
>drip<p>

drip

He tunes the sounds out now, like blinking, until something clogs up and the beeping goes erratic. Otherwise it's just muted background noise.

drip

He thinks about Cameron. He knows why she's here, of course. It was all she could do to keep her hands off him all that time while he was crippled but conscious. There's no way she could have resisted the opportunity to stay at his side, to share this peculiar brand of intimacy, while he was this vulnerable.

drip  
>drip<br>drip

He's cold. For a moment it's tempting to imagine: her fresh young body folding itself under his sheets, smooth skin warm against his hip. He's tired. She would worship his once-powerful chest as she changed his bandages, then stroke his thinning hair, whispering reassuring nonsense, until he drifted back into oblivion. Or, one word from him, and she would stroke something else. Offer herself up as a yearning receptacle for his stopped-up semen.

drip

It must be getting really late now. She's still there, still watching. Waiting for him to decide drip for her. She'd let him. She had and she would. Why couldn't he just take advantage of it? Any other red-blooded American male would. Maybe he was over-analyzing. Maybe he was too fucking proud.

drip drip

drip

drip  
>drip<p>

He's horny. It hits him suddenly drip and fuck, it's inconvenient. He thinks about Cameron's cool hands, resting, still. Hears the rustle as she uncrosses and recrosses her legs. Hopes that she doesn't notice the tent that he's surely raising beneath the sheets. Hopes that even if she does, she doesn't take it for more than it is. He does find her physically attractive, but his hard-on is just a build-up of stress and adrenaline and tension releasing in a very specific way. Or so he tells himself.

drip drip

He thinks about the horrible vests she wears, but that image backfires, highlighting the creamy, tender skin at the base of her throat. He thinks about her answering his mail, typing, slender . . . dripfingers running up his thighs, trailing over his groin. In his imagination, the thumb and index fingertips of her right hand find each other and encircle his cock.

drip  
>drip<br>drip

Gritting his teeth, he risks a quick glance through slitted lids. She doesn't notice; she's craning her neck, looking out towards the hallway. He suddenly realizes that she's done waiting, that something is about to happen and only he can stop it. At this time of night, there's only one or two nurses on shift, and they won't be too tempted to check because they know she's here.

drip

He thinks about Cameron. Familiar, vaguely pathetic, damaged enough to love someone who would only disappoint. But what did it really matter as long as he got off?

If only he were as free of conscience as Wilson sometimes seems to think.

drip drip

That's the scrape of a chair leg against the floor. He can hear Cameron sliding forward in her seat. The rustle of clothing as she shifts position.

A skirt. She wears skirts well, cleans up like nobody's business when she's not trying too hard to be taken seriously. That strapless red dress she wore at the casino benefit suits her frame, highlights the subtle slopes of hip and breast. It's not often so he's rightclicksaved drip the few times it's happened.

His fingers twitch with the intensity of his desire to take hold of himself despite the heavy pressure on his chest, the way his very skin hurts. If only she would go away, leave him to his own sordid recollections. But wait. What's the little minx up to now?

drip drip drip

His mind snaps to attention, his focus dissolving and narrowing both at once. _Fuck me_, he thinks, _she's touching herself_. No matter how soft, there's no mistaking the sounds of skin on slippery skin, the smell of female musk rising to his flaring nostrils. He has to fight the urge to swallow.

drip her fingers make a slick sound

drip

His mouth is dry, his tongue heavy and sticking to the roof of his mouth. drip Water water everywhere, he thinks fleetingly, imagining her skin under his, his tongue running over the sweat on the nape of her neck. drip

The heart monitor bleeps once out of rhythm, and he fights to hold himself very, very still. Her fingers don't stop, but he senses her momentary distraction. Against his own best judgment, he wills her to focus, to finish. Just the drip, the beep, the pulse against her fingertip.

The beeps fall back into rhythm and for a second the drips sync up

beep  
>drip<p>

beep  
>drip<strong><br>**  
>He hears her suck a little breath in through her nose. He can't help himself, has to sneak just one quick look at the magic moment. Sure enough, she's sprawling there in her seat, back to the door, legs spread wide, hand thrust deep into her panties. A thin sheen of sweat covers her fine features, and her flush plunges under her neckline. It's so startling that he almost comes right there, just from looking at her. He squeezes his eyes shut again.<p>

drip

She comes, making a quick, low keen deep in her throat that leaves a haze in his head, an ache in his groin.

_Fuck._ His fingers flex with frustration as she eases hers out of her pants. He knows she's watching as his lips just barely part and he allows a sound of longing to ooze out with a breath. She deliberately sucks her two wet fingertips into her mouth to clean them. Some angel.

His eyes open fully, and he lets them take a few seconds to focus, first on the ceiling, then at random corners of the room. When he eventually finds her again, she's sitting serenely with a book in her hands. Although no facade of calm can hide her moist forehead, the unlined throat mottled white and pink.

"How long have I been out?"

She puts on a mild show of looking up like she's surprised. "About two days," she says, setting her book down and getting up to fiddle with the I.V. tubing.

"Sounds right."

He focuses on her, and silence hangs over them for a moment. It finally dawns on House that the thigh hurts, but no more than the rest of him. He opens his mouth to ask the question but she answers before he can.

"You got the Ketamine."

"Did your job then. Good."

"It was what you wanted."

"Yeah, but it isn't what you would have done, is it?"

"Wasn't my decision."

"If I hadn't asked for it, you wouldn't have volunteered."

"What does it matter?" She sighs, sliding fingertips across her creased forehead.

He falls silent. Licks his lips and swallows. She pats him on the shoulder and turns to go, but his hand closes around her wrist.

She turns back. He stares at her for long heavy seconds. Does she know? Will he tell her?

drip drip

drip  
>drip<br>drip

drip  
>drip<p>

drip

"'M thirsty." _Coward_.

Her lips open, but she stays silent. She looks to the pitcher and cup sitting lamely on a rolling table. She looks back at his fingers now closed around hers, at her fingers between his. The ones she licked. The ones he pictured himself licking.

He's alive. She's a mess, and they're both so thirsty.


End file.
